DENIZENS OF OUR WARM ATLANTIC WATERS
BY ROY WALDO MINER*
VOYAGING southward from New
York toward tropic waters on a
midwinter day, we gaze out over a
leaden sea of dull-green color, lashed by
the stiff, chilling wind. But the next morn
ing we awaken to a balmy air and go on
deck to behold the ocean miraculously
changed to ultramarine blue, the dark,
swelling waves crowned with snowy foam
which churns up in the wake of the vessel
in turquoise turmoil before reaching the
surface.
Petrels follow the ship, skipping from
wave to wave. Toward afternoon a school
of porpoises glides in and out of the sea
in never-ending chase, while flying fishes,
glinting in blue and silver, dart anxiously
from the water and sail long distances,
flicking the wave crests with their tails to
gain momentum.
We are in the Gulf Stream, that mar
velous river in the ocean, which gives the
North Atlantic its unique character and
profoundly affects its temperature even as
far as the North Sea, bestowing upon the
British Isles and Scandinavia the inesti
mable boon of a chastened climate.t
We can imagine the surprise of Ponce de
Leon when, sailing along the coast of Flor
ida in 1513, he found his ship borne irre
sistibly northward in its current. We
acknowledge the service rendered to sea
men by Benjamin Franklin, who advised
vessels bound for England to take advan
tage of its northeastward course.
THE GULF STREAM'S MAGIC TOUCH
The Gulf Stream exerts an influence on
the spread and distribution of the marine
life of the Atlantic which cannot be over
estimated.
The main current warms the whole
North Atlantic, and spurs setting in toward
the coast have a striking effect on the dis
tribution of floating life off the Middle
* This is the second of two articles by Dr.
Miner, Curator of Marine Life, American Museum
of Natural History, describing coastal creatures of
the eastern seaboard. The first, "Sea Creatures of
Our Atlantic Shores," with paintings by Else
Bostelmann, appeared in THE NATIONAL GEO
GRAPHIC MAGAZINE for August, 1936.
t See "The Grandest and Most Mighty Terres
trial Phenomenon: The Gulf Stream," by Rear
Admiral John Elliott Pillsbury, NATIONAL GEO
GRAPHIC MAGAZINE, August, 1912.
Atlantic States and southern New England.
Here, however, the warm stream is sepa
rated from shore by colder waters forming
what is known as the "Cold Wall."
South
of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland it
meets the icy Labrador Current which flows
down from the north, bringing a northern
fauna and making its influence felt along
the shore, particularly north of Cape Cod.
The Gulf Stream, on the other hand, ex
tends the range of many West Indian and
other tropical species far to the northward
during the summer, some of them being
borne to the British Isles, so that the pelagic
life of the mid-Atlantic is more tropical in
character than that of the same latitude on
the North American coast.
LIVING FLEETS SAIL SUNNY WATERS
Let us sail out across the Gulf Stream in
a southeasterly direction, keeping our eyes
open for evidences of its floating life.
It is a calm day. Our seagoing launch
glides over quiet waters, but the northeast
ward drift of the current is obvious.
Suddenly we see a graceful, translucent
object, like an oddly elongated bladder,
floating on the surface. It is brilliantly
colored blue and crimson, the hues more
intense at its tapering ends and shading
into a play of delicate transparent tints
along its sides.
As we come nearer we see still others,
and soon we realize that we are steering into
the midst of a fleet of these fairy craft.
Each one erects a crest resembling a succes
sion of iridescent, foamlike bubbles along
its summit, bordered with an edging of
deep crimson.
These are the Portuguese man-of-war
(Physalia pelagica), an organism related
to the hydroids and jellyfish, but consisting
of a whole colony of connected individuals
floating as a unit (Plate II).
At first glance only one member of the
colony is visible. But, as we look down
ward through the transparent water, we see
masses of smaller tube-shaped projections
depending from its lower side just beneath
the surface. The majority are deep blue,
while scattered here and there among them
are clusters of salmon pink, and fingerlike
protuberances of green. Fringelike strings
edged with bluish beads float out from this
mass, jerking spasmodically.